JESSICA SIMPSON & JEAN HARLOW: “THE CREEPY DAD CLUB”

“She just is sexy. If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she’s sexy in both. She’s got double D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!”

That’s Christian Pastor Joe Simpson singing heavenly praises about his blonde bombshell daughter Jessica and her earthly anatomy. The dad/manager continues his devilish display of filial devotion by observing: “Her chest is ahead of her by about two or three feet. It gets there before she does.”

The congregation of the Church of What’s Happening, better known as the world wide web, seems universal in the opinion that Pastor Joe: “…is a creepy Christian who pimps his daughters out.” Dad also manages his other daughter, Ashlee.

Preceding Pastor Joe in the “creepy dad” category by over 70 years was Mario Bello, the smarmy stepfather of the original blonde bombshell, JEAN HARLOW. For those of you who never heard of the ‘30s movie actress, let’s just say without Harlow, there’d be no MARILYN MONROE. Marilyn idolized the ‘30s sex goddess who died young, and kept scrapbooks on her. She mimicked Harlow right down to wearing no underwear, and bleaching the hair on her head AND way down south.

Harlow’s smothering mother and incestuous stepfather managed her career. They siphoned off large amounts of money from her bank account. Even in her movie star heyday, Jean struggled to pay their bills. Only Jean’s death at age 26 severed the umbilical cord between the obsessed, emotional blackmailer mother and “The Baby”.

After molesting her, Harlow’s creepy, braggadocio stepdad pimped her out to his gangster friends, the most notable being Bugsy Siegel. Jean refused the dashing murderer’s advances after Dad brought her to Bugsy’s bedroom. She did, however, date mobster Abe Zwillman, who got her a Cadillac, a diamond bracelet, AND a two-picture deal with Columbia Pictures. The studio head owed Abe a lot of money.

Now Pastor Joe never did any such thing to superstar Jessica. But he did somethin’ that made people scratch their heads and go, “HUH?!!” When Jessica reached 12, Dad gave her a “promise ring”. During the ceremony, he made his daughter promise to stay a virgin until she wed. Dad pledged to be the only man in Jessica’s life until then. He vowed to, “…tell you how beautiful you are every day. Even when you make a mistake, you are someone special. And I am going to be that person until the day you find a man to do that in my place.” HUH?!!

Okay, so it worked. Jessica Simpson remained a virgin until her marriage to singer Nick Lachey. Just ask the producers of their MTV reality show, “Newlyweds”. But Jean Harlow, socialite daughter of a Christian Scientist mother, also stayed a virgin until she married her first husband, a young, handsome heir to a fortune.

There is speculation that the divorces that followed for both virginal sex queens happened in large part because of Daddy Dearest. Nick Lachey often said he couldn’t tell if Pastor Joe liked him. Dad seemed omnipresent in their marriage.

Jessica Simpson & Jean Harlow both had the epithet “dumb blonde” attached to their respective luminous careers as top-selling music artist and Hollywood’s first sexpot superstar.

Jessica asked her husband if the Chicken of the Sea tuna she was eating was chicken or fish! She also believed that buffalo wings came from buffalos! This “dumb blonde” shrewdly parlayed her faux pas squared into a 3 million seller platinum album.

Jean Harlow, the other “dumb blonde”, had a photographic memory. She NEVER ran lines. She’d take a quick look at the script, emerge from her dressing room and do the scenes PERFECTLY, take after take. Jean was also a voracious reader with an historic novel or detective story always in hand.

Both Jessica and Jean’s grandmothers financed their early careers.

Jessica, sang in Pastor Joe’s church choir. Discovered by a Christian record label while at church camp, the singer was elated. But Jessica’s newfound label went belly up before her record could be released. Grandma financed a small pressing. The teen went on to become a hit on the Christian Youth Conference circuit, and then on to pop music fame and seductive carnality.

Jean Harlow’s rich grandfather vowed to disinherit her if she pursued a Hollywood career. So her grandmother secretly sent money from her trust fund. Yes, Grandma Harlow initially bankrolled the Tinseltown dream that became reality.

We can only hope that Jessica does not parallel Jean Harlow’s post-divorce path.

In her quest for a proper Daddy, Harlow married a man twice her age, a Casper Milquetoast lookalike who was known on the MGM lot as Hollywood’s “Little Father Confessor”. Paul Bern, husband No. 2, was only the second man to have sex with Jean. The ferret-like Bern enjoyed a reputation around town as a gentleman and suave intellect.

In reality, the platinum blonde sex goddess had married a man with the penis and testicles of an infant boy. And as if this wasn’t stupendous enough, he was impotent to boot. Two months after their wedding, Bern made an heroic attempt to satisfy his bride and his marital obligation. He appeared in Jean’s bed chamber wearing nothing but a huge, realistic, rubber phallus. Jean burst out laughing at the sight and size of the dildo.

The next evening, Jean Harlow found her husband dead on the bathroom floor, a bullet in his brain.

A grief-stricken Jean turned to promiscuity and alcoholism to punish herself. Disguised, she had anonymous sex with many men in many cities. Once, a salesman in a sleazy San Francisco motel encounter told her she looked a little like Jean Harlow.

But life is one big oxymoron. She remained Hollywood’s most beloved citizen. Jean Harlow’s light shone brightly in Hollywood until the end. Even the spurned Bugsy Siegel showed up at her funeral to pay his respects.

So, Jessica, go slowly into that dating scene. Don’t look for Daddy. Look for the trite. Look for the sweet mystery of life.

And then run like hell from Pastor Joe.

(c)2006, Sistarrs International